e writer
knows would be held to be ridiculous by any eyes, and any ears, and
any sense, but the eyes and ears and sense of the dear one to whom
they are sent, is very sweet;--but for the girl who has made a shirt
for the man that she loves, there has come a moment in the last
stitch of it, sweeter than any that stars, haycocks, poetry, or
superlative epithets have produced. Nora Rowley had never as yet
been thus useful on behalf of Hugh Stanbury. Had she done so, she
might perhaps have been happier even than she was during this
journey;--but, without the shirt, it was one of the happiest moments
of her life. There was nothing now to separate them but their own
prudential scruples;--and of them it must be acknowledged that Hugh
Stanbury had very few. According to his shewing, he was as well
provided for matrimony as the gentleman in the song, who came out
to woo his bride on a rainy night. In live stock he was not so well
provided as the Irish gentleman to whom we allude; but in regard to
all other provisions for comfortable married life, he had, or at a
moment's notice could have, all that was needed. Nora could live just
where she pleased;--not exactly in Whitehall Gardens or Belgrave
Square; but the New Road, Lupus Street, Montague Place, the North
Bank, or Kennington Oval, with all their surrounding crescents,
terraces, and rows, offered, according to him, a choice so wide,
either for lodgings or small houses, that their only embarrassment
was in their riches. He had already insured his life for a thousand
pounds, and, after paying yearly for that, and providing a certain
surplus for saving, five hundred a year was the income on which they
were to commence the world. "Of course, I wish it were five thousand
for your sake," he said; "and I wish I were a Cabinet Minister, or a
duke, or a brewer; but, even in heaven, you know all the angels can't
be archangels." Nora assured him that she would be quite content with
virtues simply angelic. "I hope you like mutton-chops and potatoes; I
do," he said. Then she told him of her ambition about the beef-steak,
acknowledging that, as it must now be shared between two, the
glorious idea of putting a part of it away in a cupboard must be
abandoned. "I don't believe in beef-steaks," he said. "A beef-steak
may mean anything. At our club, a beef-steak is a sumptuous and
expensive luxury. Now, a mutton-chop means something definite, and
must be economical."

"Then we will have the m